Paper Punk

Giving thanks, feeling blessed, and powering up for one helleva 2014! (IE: Paper Punk heading to Atlanta, Dallas, Vegas, and Los Angeles in January….ack!)

Cheers to you and yours and to a kick a** new year! 

From an Urban Fold Kickstarter Backer who just received their set....

Sounds like our mission is being accomplished!

“Hi Grace….Juniper (age 3) and I just built “The World’s Greatest Vampire”. I did the folding, she did most of the sticking and the stickers. It was a fun little project. She is playing with her new friend now.”

Note the details: drips of blood in the wine glass and the blushing hearts…LOVE!

We’re working our tails off to get kids, tweens, teens, and adults alike to keep their creative-minds-via-their-hands busy with our mission that is Paper Punk. So, we were tickled purple when Nickelodeon invited us to make TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) Paper Punk kits. What better gateway to exercise your brain than with bad-ass, pizza-loving, evil-fighting turtles…Waaaaaay cool. The cat is out of the bag thanks to a Fox News segment this morning live from Toy Preview in Dallas. Check it:

I’ll let this picture speak a thousand words…or better yet, maybe just one– RAD!

When I was in my early 20′s I spent part of a late summer afternoon observing an elderly couple quietly feeding ducks at a pond in Germany. It was at the tail end of a very long trip I took backpacking through Europe. I had traveled thousands of miles from home looking for adventure. My theory was the farther away I went, the sooner I’d discover something new and transformative. This couple seemed so happy, simply at peace. It’s because they’re old…I’ll probably be happy feeding ducks when I’m eighty, I dismissed to myself. It was envy’s way of justifying my restlessness. Fast forward twenty plus years later and here I am, at the tail end of another summer, without a heavy backpack, tugging a hand that is in search of that pond. The pond represents a peace of mind, knowing that you already have everything you need to be okay/whole. And this pond isn’t a place, it’s a reflection of you, so don’t look away. I want to show this hand that we don’t need to search outside of ourselves to find our way, we are enough. The undiscovered resides within us– in the way we view, give, and share this world and our lives. This picture is the pond. See with patience, breathe deep and realize you are already (and still are) here.
PS: I’m standing right next to you.

AH-HA (2013) paper blocks, plastic, ink, 48″ x 48″

We just found out that Paper Punk won a Parents’ Choice Award this year!

“…..Aside from the terrific quality and visual design of the product, what really stands out about these Paper Punk products is the tangible challenges it offers to children as they explore form, function and creativity while making their own toy. In a world so dominated by video games and apps, it was truly refreshing to watch our testers absorb themselves in this project and walk away with something with which they can continue to play.”

Serious WOW. I’m talking about the really cool stuff people made and placed on the 25 foot long Paper Punk wall at TEDactive just over a week ago. What would YOU make with all you could fold Paper Punk shapes? Here are some highlights in case you didn’t catch it on Unbeige or TEDactive.